Jacko sighed. ‘How many times are you going to tell me?’ he said. ‘I get it. They’re old. We don’t hurt them.’ He scratched the rash of old acne scars across his cheek. Jacko had the sort of face only a mother could love; a weak chin, a pig-like nose and the blank eyes of a teenager who had spent too may hours on his PlayStation.
‘It’s not about not hurting,’ said Dobbsy. ‘That’s the thing. Most of them are so old you can bruise them just by blowing at them. If they fall over they break a hip, if you grab their wrist you can snap their arm. Most of them are confused, you just have to talk to them like they’re simple and they’ll do as they’re told. If they do turn belligerent, there’s nothing they can do, remember that. They can’t force you to do anything, and if you keep their phone away from them they can’t phone for help. The cops take forever to answer 999 calls anyway these days. And when they do answer it takes them forever to get anyone out.’
Jacko rolled his eyes. ‘Dobbsy, I’m not stupid. I’ve robbed houses before.’
‘This isn’t robbing,’ said Dobbsy. ‘This is conning.’ He leaned over, popped the glovebox open, and pulled out two laminated ID cars on blue lanyards. He gave one to Jacko and put the other around his neck. ‘This says we work for the council and we’re police-approved. I made them myself and they look the dog’s bollocks but most of them are almost blind anyway. But if they look worried you just smile and show them the ID and tell them we work for the council.’
‘And they believe it? It’s as easy as that?’
‘They’re old, mate. This guy is over eighty. He’s one step away from being in a home. The trick is just to keep smiling and tell them not to worry.’
Jacko nodded. ‘Got it.’
They were sitting in Dobbsy’s black Golf GTI in a road lined with shabby terraced houses. There were three sorts of households – the elderly, families on benefits and recently arrived immigrants. The house that Dobbsy was intereste fowd in was Number 27. There was only one occupant, a man in his eighties by the name of Duns. Duns rarely left the house. Twice a week he would walk slowly down the road to the Tesco Express store between a bookmaker’s and a charity shop, and would return half an hour later with a carrier bag full of food. He never went near an ATM, and so Dobbsy assumed there was cash in the house. Old people didn’t trust banks and preferred cash wherever possible. They tended to have jewellery, too. In one house he’d found a dozen sovereigns in a red velvet pouch tucked away in a sock drawer.
Dobbsy had just turned twenty years old. As a teenager he’d been a prolific burglar and over a six-year career had broken into more than a thousand houses. Two or three a week, on average. He’d been caught several times but only as a juvenile, and always got off with a caution.
It was when he turned twenty that Dobbsy had an epiphany. Instead of breaking into houses at random, usually chosen because a window had been left open or a door unlocked, he decided to choose his targets more carefully. And instead of breaking in, he began to simply walk in through the front door. The idea had come to him when his mother had called in a locksmith to fit a peephole viewer and a security chain. Dobbsy had watched, fascinated, as the man had worked, and had asked a few questions. Later, as he lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling, he realised that old folk would probably jump at the chance of having the extra security fitted. The next day he’d gone around to a hardware store, bought himself a toolbox, drill and a selection of viewers and chains, and had started knocking on doors.
His original idea had been to charge the old folk a tenner for a peephole and a tenner for a chain, but it soon became obvious that it was going to be a struggle getting them to part with their money. But what he realised was that a simple knock on the door got him into the house. That was when he’d had his second brainwave. If he could find a partner and the two of them could get into the house, one of them could distract the occupant while the other could move through the house looking for cash and valuables.
He’d teamed up with an old school friend, Gordo, and together they’d honed the technique that had netted them thousands of pounds in just a few months. Dobbsy would do the talking, and give them the spiel about the council giving them free peepholes and security chains, then Gordo would take the owner of the house into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Dobbsy would then check the bedrooms and the sitting room, stealing whatever he could, then when he was done he would make some excuse about not having the right tools and they would leave. It was clean and no one got hurt and it was practically risk free. Most of the old folk they dealt with were so forgetful he figured that most of them would never know that they had been ripped off.
Cash was the best thing to find, obviously, and old people always seemed to have cash in their homes. Dobbsy didn’t know whether it was because they didn’t trust banks or because they didn’t know how to use credit cards, but either way they always had something tucked away, more often than not in their bedrooms. There was usually jewellery, too. The women often had necklaces and rings hidden away, but so too did the men, probably left over from the days when they had wives. Dobbsy had also started taking an interest in antiques. Old people generally had old things in their homes, and while a lot of it was crap he did sometimes come across a Royal Doulton figurine or a Wedgwood pot that he could sell down the Portobello Road. He’d started reading up on antiques on the internet and always made a point of taking a closer look at what was on the mantelpiece and sideboard.
All had gone swimmingly until Gordo had got into an argument with a drunken Polish builder in a pub and received a pint glass in his face for his trouble. He wasn’t able to leave his house and if he did Dobbsy reckoned he’d scare the pants off anyone who opened their door, so he needed a replacement.
The best he could find was Jacko, Gordo’s cousin, who like Dobbsy had been a prolific burglar. Unlike Dobbsy, Jacko tended to forget things like gloves and escape routes and had been caught red-handed more than a dozen times. He’d been lucky enough to come up before a succession of well-meaning magistrates who had listened to his story of a broken home and an absent father and dyslexia and God knows what else and decided that prison was absolutely the wrong place for him and that he’d be much better off sent on his way with a pat on the head and a plea for him to behave himself in future.
‘I know this is your first time, Jacko, but there’s no need to be nervous,’ said Dobbsy. ‘Just take it nice and slow.’
‘Piece of cake,’ said Jacko, rubbing his hands together.
‘Let’s do it,’ said Dobbsy. They climbed out of the GTI. The car was Dobbsy’s pride and joy. The only reason he could afford it was because he lived with his mother and so didn’t have to pay rent. He’d put on alloy wheels and souped up the engine and had fitted a stereo that was so powerful that it vibrated the fillings in his teeth at full volume.
Dobbsy opened up the back of the car and took out a blue metal toolkit. Then a door security chain in a plastic bag which he gave to Jacko.
They walked over to the house and Dobbsy pressed the doorbell.
‘You sure he’s in?’ asked Jacko.
‘They’re always in,’ said Dobbsy. ‘They’ve got nowhere else to go.’ He pressed the doorbell again, longer this time. Dobbsy leaned forward and put his ear against the door. He heard a cough from inside. ‘He’s coming,’ he said. ‘He walks with a stick. Takes him ages to get anywhere.’
The door creaked open and a pair of watery eyes blinked at them. ‘Who is it?’
‘Mr Duns?’ asked Dobbsy.
The old man nodded.
Dobbsy smiled brightly. ‘We’re from the council, Mr Duns.’ He held up his badge. ‘They’ve sent us to fit a peephole viewer so that you can see who’s outside.’ He held up a plastic bag containing a peephole. ‘And we’ll fit an extra-strong chain so that no one can get in.’ He turned to look at Jacko and Jacko held up the chain.
The door opened wider and the old man looked up at them suspiciously. ‘Who sent you?’ he asked.
‘The council,’ said Dobbsy patiently. ‘They are offering a free service to upgrade your security. It won’t cost you a thing.’
The old man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Free?’
‘Absolutely free,’ said Dobbsy. ‘There have been a few robberies in the area and the council wants senior citizens such as yourself to feel more secure. It’d make you feel better to know who was outside before you open the door, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose so, yes,’ said the man. He opened the door wider. ‘I suppose you’d better come in. But wipe your feet, mind. Those pikey bastards next door let their dogs shit all over the pavements.’
‘No problem, Mr Duns,’ said Dobbsy. He stepped over the threshold and wiped his feet on a mat. Jacko did the same. The old man ushered them into the hallway and closed the door behind them. Dobbsy wrinkled his nose in disgust. He hated the smell of old people’s houses. Stale cabbage and sweat and piss, but at least this one didn’t seem to be a smoker. The houses of smokers were the worst by far.
The walls had once been cream or maybe even white but now they were the dirty yellow of an old sponge. The carpet was a red and black pattern that was so threadbare that there were patches of grey underfelt showing through. The ceiling was covered with a woodchip paper that was stained with black mould and peeling away at the corners. The hallway looked as if it hadn’t been touched with a paintbrush for at least twenty years, maybe thirty.
‘So, this won’t take too long, Mr Duns,’ said Dobbsy, putting his toolbox on a side table. He looked expectantly at Jacko.
‘I’m gasping for a cup of tea,’ said Jacko, on cue.
‘Tea?’ repeated the old man. He was almost bald, the scalp mottled with red scaly patches and dotted with irregular moles. His eyes had large, oyster-like bags underneath them. His lips were pale and bloodless and loose skin hung around his neck, giving him the look of a malnourished turkey. He was wearing baggy grey trousers, a blue and white checked shirt and a tatty purple cardigan that had worn through at the elbows. On his feet were red slippers that were stained with years of sweat. At least Dobbsy hoped it was sweat – there were similar patches on the front of the man’s trousers.
‘Yeah, tea would be great, thanks,’ said Dobbsy. ‘Milk and two sugars. Thirsty work, this.’ He opened the toolbox and took out a drill.
Jacko put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. ‘I’ll help you, in the kitchen,’ he said.
Dobbsy frowned and threw Jacko a warning glance. It was best not to touch them, not even slightly. They were so fragile, the old.
Jacko took his hand away. ‘The kitchen, yeah?’ he said, nodding encouragingly. ‘Let’s go and make that tea, shall we.’
‘Tea?’ repeated the old man. He was leaning on a wooden walking stick with a large rubber tip on the end.
‘Yeah, tea,’ said Jacko. He mimed drinking from a cup. ‘Tea. Maybe a biscuit.’
The old man shuffled along the threadbare carpet towards the kitchen. Dobbsy watched Jacko follow the old man to the kitchen and close the door. Jacko flashed him a thumbs-up just before he disappeared from sight.
Dobbsy put down the peephole viewer, slipped on a pair of white latex gloves and tiptoed up the stairs, keeping close to the wall to minimise any squeaking from the old floorboards. The smell of urine was worse upstairs. There were three doors. One was open and Dobbsy saw a stained bath and a mildewed wall. He opened one of the other doors and stepped into what was obviously the old man’s bedroom. There was a single bed with blankets and a grubby pillow. Dobbsy wrinkled his nose in disgust as the stench of body odour assailed his nostrils.
He went over to a wooden chest of drawers and pulled open the top drawer. On the left were yellowed pairs of underwear, on the right were balled-up socks, mainly grey. Dobbsy rifled through them. Nothing.
There were shirts in the second drawer and, at the back, in a manila envelope, a handful of used banknotes. Dobbsy grinned as 16; grinnehe rifled through the money. They were mainly twenty-pound notes with a few tens and one five. Just under two hundred pounds in all. He shoved the money into his pocket and put the envelope back where he’d found it.
He struck gold when he opened the third drawer, literally. Under a pile of shirts he found a red velvet box, about six inches long and three inches wide. Inside were a collection of rings, eighteen in all. Five were straightforward gold wedding rings worth at most a couple of hundred quid, but there were two sovereign rings and the rest were diamond engagement rings and dress rings with what looked like genuine rubies and sapphires. Dobbsy whistled softly. The diamond rings were worth thousands. No question about it. And the ruby and sapphire rings could be worth as much. He picked up one of the rings and held it up to the light from the streaked window. The diamond was the size of a pea and it sparkled like the real thing. Dobbsy’s heart began to pound. It was a serious diamond, one of the biggest he’d ever seen.
He took the diamonds from the box and slid them into his jacket pocket, then put the box back under the shirts.
He was lifting up the mattress when he heard a dull thud downstairs, the sound of a body hitting the floor.
‘Shit,’ he said, and let the mattress fall back into place. ‘I told you, Jacko, no bloody violence!’ he shouted.
He hurried out of the room and ran down the stairs, two at a time.
‘I’ll bloody swing for you if you’ve hurt him,’ he shouted. He hurried into the kitchen. He saw a pair of legs at the side of the table. ‘You idiot!’ he shouted. He took a step forward and it was then he noticed that the legs ended in a pair of expensive Nikes. ‘Jacko?’
He heard a noise behind him and turned just in time to see the old man coming towards him, his walking stick held high. Dobbsy opened his mouth to speak but before he could say anything the old man brought the stick crashing down on Dobbsy’s head and everything went black.
When Dobbsy came around his head hurt like hell. Something was making breathing difficult and he realised that there was something soft in his mouth. He tried to spit it out but there was something keeping it there. He blinked and realised that although he was sitting up he couldn’t move his arms and legs.
As his eyes came into focus he saw Jacko, sitting in a chair on the other side of the room. His arms and legs were bound to the chair with what looked like lengths of washing line and a tea towel was tied around his mouth.
Jacko was awake and straining at his bonds. When he saw that Dobbsy had opened his eyes he tried to say something to him but the tea towel muffled any sounds he made.
‘That’s better, I was starting to think I’d topped you, and where would the fun be in that?’ said a voice. Dobbsy looked to his right. The old man was sitting on the sofa. In front of him, on the coffee table, was a coiled-up washing line and a large pair of scissors. Dobbsy looked down at his hands. His wrists were tied to the arms of the wooden chair. They were tied tightly and expertly with almost no room for movement, no matter how hard he strained.
‘You went down like a sack of spuds,’ said the old man. He chuckled. ‘So did your mate but him I had to hit twice.’
Dobbsy strained at his bonds again but his arms and legs were tied fast.
‘I’m good with knots,’ said the old man. ‘Had to ruin a perfectly good washingakigood wa line, but I wasn’t prepared for visitors.’ He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then grinned, showing a mouthful of decaying teeth. ‘I can’t believe you lads are here. I don’t really get any visitors any more. Well, I get a home help now and then but that’s it, really.’
Dobbsy stared at the coffee table. There was an untidy pile of banknotes there, the money he’d taken from the chest of drawers. And the collection of rings.
The old man rubbed his hands together. ‘This is so unexpected, you know? I have absolutely nothing planned. It’s all off the cuff. Reminds me of my first time.’ He frowned. ‘How many years ago was that? A bloody lifetime ago, I can tell you. I was a different man back then. Fit as a butcher’s dog, strong as an ox, I could have given
the two of you a belting and wouldn’t have needed a stick.’
He laughed, but within seconds his frail body was racked with coughs and he bent forward, patting his chest hard.
He gradually recovered his breath and looked at them with watery blue eyes. ‘Let me tell you, boys, there’s nothing good about getting old. Not one thing. Your bones ache, your bladder empties whenever it feels like it, you forget things. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gone into the kitchen to get something and then forgotten what it is I wanted.’ He chuckled softly. ‘Yet I can remember my first like it was just yesterday. It’s true what they say, you never forget your first.’
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘She was a prostitute. Name of Caitlin. Only found out her real name after it was in the papers, though. Told me that her name was Vanessa. She was a hooker in Liverpool. She was what they called a half-caste back then, her dad was from Jamaica and her mum was a Scouser. Lovely colour she was. Like coffee, with just a touch of milk. Strangled her in my car, with my bare hands.’
He held up his hands and looked at them as if seeing them for the first time. The skin was almost translucent, revealing thick blue veins, and the nails were yellowed and gnarled. ‘Couldn’t do that these days, lads. Not with my arthritis. Can barely open a tin of beans now.’ He smiled ruefully and there was a faraway look in his eyes. ‘But back then, I was a right fighter, I’d take anyone on. I boxed a bit, in the army. National Service. We all did it back then. The war was over but we still got called up. Did me a power of good, I can tell you. You lads missed out on that. You’d have enjoyed it. They teach you how to drive and how to fire a rifle, you get to hang out with a bunch of mates.’ He looked over at them. ‘Some of the best times of my life, back then.’ He frowned. ‘What was I talking about?’ His frown deepened. ‘I keep forgetting. I hate that.’
Spider's Web: A Collection of All-Action Short Stories Page 3
